Loma Rica man who held women captive sentenced to 6 years

A 31-year-old man who held two women captive all night and beat them was sentenced Monday in Yuba County Superior Court to six years in prison.

The incident occurred April 10 in the same Loma Rica area where Michael Allen Stewart lives. He pleaded no contest to kidnapping.

A plea agreement that included dismissal of other charges, including torture and sexual battery, left one of the women angry. The other woman did not want to be interviewed, according to a Yuba County Probation Department report.

Stewart had been involved in a previous dispute with the women when he called the house where they were staying on a Sunday night. One of the women, who admitted having occasional sex with Stewart but said he was not her boyfriend, told him not to come over, the report said.

Stewart showed up anyway about 10 p.m. and dragged her out of bed by her hair, tying a horse rein around her neck and her hands behind her back. He stripped and cut her clothes off and had both women lean over a freezer while he whipped them with reins.

He told the first woman to bite a wooden stair hard enough to leave marks. Investigators found the marks.

Stewart forced both women into a bedroom and continued beating them. He threatened to dismember one of the women with a knife, according to the probation report. Both women suffered "significant bruising" but no other injuries, according to a Yuba County Sheriff's Department report.

When the first woman's alarm clock sounded at 5 a.m., Stewart began acting "normal," according to the report.

Stewart was on parole at the time after a 2008 conviction for inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant.

CONTACT reporter Rob Young at 749-4784.